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What is Rental History?

A rental history report is generally considered when looking to rent a property. A rental history report is an important part of the rental process when you’re looking for a home, condominium, townhouse or apartment to rent. Not only can it determine whether you’ll be accepted or denied on your next rental home, but it may also have an impact on your credit score and rating.

When you apply for a new rental home, landlords and management companies may pull your credit bureau reports. This gives landlords a way to determine if your credit history includes any bankruptcies, collections, evictions or lawsuits with creditors. However, several rent bureaus also offer rental history reports, which will allow your potential landlord to see where you’ve lived, if you’ve paid your rent to past landlords and generally your performance as a resident with tenancy grantors as compared to your history with credit grantors.

A negative rental history report could prevent you from renting your next home. However, there are certain steps to take to remove the negative marks. For example, you may have been a good tenant in the past who just happened to make a few late payments. Consider contacting your previous landlord beforehand and asking if you can make an additional payment to rectify the situation. Many times, rental history report providers or rent bureau companies may call or use a previous landlord’s recommendation and in turn forward the information to the new potential landlord. Be proactive to ensure that your previous landlords have no reason to give you a negative review. Get a copy of your Rental History before you apply.

If any of your past rentals resulted in an eviction, not only will you likely have a negative report from your previous landlord, but the eviction will show up on your rent report, bringing your rent score down and making it difficult for you to secure a rental. The best course of action in these instances is to make arrangements to pay off your eviction debts as soon as possible. Some landlords are willing to work with those with late rental payment history, but most are unwilling to take a chance on a tenant who has been evicted and hasn’t made any effort to pay off their debt. It is better to deal with an accredited rent bureau that can place comments on a rental history record that payments have been made in full. More importantly if a record of eviction is false they can show you how to remove the record altogether and even indicate the error on your court record.